“10 Proven Benefits of Being Bilingual”

It is no surprise, I AM BILINGUAL. I was raised speaking Spanish, and at the age of five, I was introduced to the English language. I remember being the little Mexican girl with an accent, attending a predominant Caucasian school. Growing up was tough, no doubt about it. I struggled trying to hold on to my Spanish language, Spanish accent, and at the same time, trying to adapt to a new one.

Little did I know, this ongoing struggle would end up benefitting me in the long run. Recently, I have come across more than one article, discussing bilingualism and the advantage that we have over monolingual’s. Besides the fact that we have the ability to speak, write, and/or read in more than language, bilingual’s have been proven to be “smarter” and have a higher resistant to Alzheimer’s disease.

According to the article, “10 Proven Brain Benefits of Being Bilingual”,

So, what are these ten proven benefits and when will we start noticing them? The staff members of bestcollegesonline.com, list these benefits as the following:

Staves off Dementia

Improved Cognitive Skills

Heightened Creativity

Easier time focusing on tasks

Greater control over literacy skills

Heightened environmental awareness

Easier time switching between tasks

Denser grey matter

Faster response time

Higher scores on intelligence tests

After reading, I thought to myself. “…Well let’s see, which of these actually apply to me”. Improved cognitive skills, yup definitely applies…. and I would say I am a pretty creative person. Of course, I have control over literacy; I often switch between languages.

This article along with the article I discussed earlier on in the week, “Why Bilinguals are smarter”, go into depth on the BENEFITS of being bilingual…whether you grew up being bilingual/trilingual, or it was something you developed later on in life, there are ways that this skill will benefit you in more ways that you ever imagined. I invite you to read the following articles and strongly recommend that you not only continue developing these skills, but that you instill them in the generations to come (in other words, your children!)